Harold Norse says, “Poetry meant being a…

Queerness is not yet here ... We must strive ... to think and feel a then and there ... we must dream and enact ... other ways of being in the world, and ultimately new worlds.
—José Esteban Muñoz, “Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity”

As a poet and a faggot, I

have often been approached

by butterflies, their cursive

flight wading in and out

of my orbit until, at last,

they rest somewhere near

my hand like a semicolon.

As I write this, a butterfly

does just that, its one leg

raised like a tooth. As I write

this, the sun is green and

pupal, and I, as a poet

and a faggot, feel

the sun speaking to me

in code. As I write this,

my phone quakes with

a message I will read

when there is nothing left

to say. As a poet—and

a faggot—I always have

something to say. I always

have this thumb of smooth jade

in my coat pocket, numb

as a word, dull as

a place. At one point,

I collected coins, the ones

with green so coarse

the face was just a shape

beneath. As a poet, and

a faggot, the mystery

was the point. I have

an app that tells me when

to water my plants, to

trim their leaves. As a poet,

and a faggot, the trimming

reminds me that losing

can be a healing thing. Oh,

before I forget, as I write

this, my reflection burns

against my laptop screen,

its fingers chips of wood

becoming mulch. What I mean

is I look at this self half-made

behind the light. The butterfly

still here, like watercolors.

Its wings flexing like a lung.

As a poet, and a faggot,

I get it. There is always

somewhere else I need

to be.

Source: Poetry (February 2023)

Harold Norse says, “Poetry meant being a sissy and worse. A fairy. A friend of mine once asked me why all poets were fairies. Well, I answered, that’s because they can fly.”